--- title: Peter Gabriel: Video Will Bring Justice in Long Run description: For police brutality and all wrongs by the powerful, evidence can convince change minds—even if it takes longer than wanted canonical: https://time.com/4781418/peter-gabriel-video-justice/ author: Peter Gabriel article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-16T21:01:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:54:17.592Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Peter Gabriel: Video Will Bring Us Justice In the Long Run og:description: 'There is power in arming truth with evidence' og:url: https://time.com/4781418/peter-gabriel-video-justice/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt57df71465ae76724/6988cd5786f68e6e7b6e4b21/video-justice.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: video-justice og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Peter Gabriel: Video Will Bring Us Justice In the Long Run twitter:description: 'There is power in arming truth with evidence' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt57df71465ae76724/6988cd5786f68e6e7b6e4b21/video-justice.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Peter Gabriel: Video Will Bring Us Justice in the Long Run > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=ae7d7ce3-bbdf-471b-b14d-6a5942e2f120&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Behind the Video of a Deadly Confrontation With Police [Watch (HLS stream): Behind the Video of a Deadly Confrontation With Police](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QGZo2z1Q.m3u8) (3:49)  _Published 2014-07-22. TIME interviews the man who captured a fatal incident between Eric Garner and NYPD officers_ by [Peter Gabriel](https://time.com/author/peter-gabriel/) ## Peter Gabriel May 16, 2017 9:01 PM UTC  John Molloy—Getty Images by [Peter Gabriel](https://time.com/author/peter-gabriel/) ## Peter Gabriel May 16, 2017 9:01 PM UTC It was 1991\. A plumber planning to record the Los Angeles marathon with his newly acquired Sony Handycam was trying it out when he heard a commotion outside and saw flashing sirens below his apartment window. He pressed the record button and began filming the brutal beating of [Rodney King](http://time.com/4746481/rodney-king-riots-documentary-clip/) by the Los Angeles Police Department. Within 12 hours, it had been seen around the world. The video sparked outrage and brought a new focus onto police conduct and brutality, racial injustice and human rights. A couple of years earlier, I had a life-changing experience as part of Amnesty International’s Human Rights Now! tour. I was profoundly shocked by my conversations with many victims of human-rights abuses, both by the extent of their suffering but also by how often their horrific experiences were denied and buried. I believed then what I still believe today — that people armed with cameras can create change. With cameras in our hands, we all can protect and defend human rights. And so in 1992, I helped found WITNESS. The organization is based on the idea that technology can transcend all borders and that information is power. Change flows when the right tools are in the right hands with the right skills. In the last 25 years, technology has evolved many times over. Heavy, expensive video cameras have been shrunk into chips, and a tiny lens is found in every cell phone. There are now very few people who do not have access to a cell phone. More [video](http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=44452&Cr=sanitation&Cr1=#.UU%5FG%5FBySV3-) is generated in a day today than was generated in an entire year when WITNESS was formed. And that cell phone in your pocket has the power to capture what’s going on and use it to ignite change. In 2014, a Staten Island grand jury declined to charge a New York City police officer in the death of [Eric Garner](http://time.com/3956619/eric-garner-settlement/). His death and last words “[I can’t breathe](http://time.com/3638696/new-yorkers-want-justice-eric-garner/)” became a rallying cry for a new generation of activists fighting to end police misconduct. Mr. Garner’s death was captured on cell-phone video and circulated widely on social media and news outlets around the world. The prevailing opinion was that the officers in charge would face justice and be held accountable for their misdeeds. That was not the result. In April, the world was yet again shocked and horrified by images coming out of [Syria](http://time.com/war-through-syrian-eyes/). The use of [sarin](http://time.com/4728846/sarin-nerve-gas-syria/) in a chemical weapons attack in the rebel-held city of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province and the subsequent airstrike on the hospital tending the survivors of the attack were captured on video. In the aftermath of the attack, President [Bashar Assad](http://time.com/4781283/syria-sanctions-human-rights-bashar-assad/) claimed that the videos of the attack were faked. The authenticated video evidence of the attacks, verified on multiple fronts, proves otherwise. This evidence is irrefutable. Examples like these may leave us at a loss. Crimes were documented — and the footage captured circled the globe many times over. Sometimes, documenting a human rights crime doesn’t directly lead to justice. But it can galvanize a movement. It can be proof regardless of what a jury decides. Most importantly, it can transform public opinion as well as national and international policies. We may not see the outcome we want when we want it, but there is power in arming truth with evidence. The reality is that human-rights crimes happen all around us, and most of us have the tools to document them. We need to not only show the truth, but to verify and prove it. We need to know how to save, protect and curate our video footage, because in most cases the road to justice is long and difficult. At times, it seems like we live in the post-truth age. Propagandists sit alongside those in power who see our world as theater, in which shocking news stories are rapidly countered by fabricated accounts suggesting that the opposite happened. We end up stunned and subdued, unsure of what we can and cannot believe. When you factor in that we only end up seeing the news that is increasingly chosen for us through algorithms and our own filter bubbles, the truth appears elusive. One way to counter this is to empower, protect and champion the storyteller and the human rights activist. History shows us time and time again the power of truth. The most effective way to counter Holocaust deniers was by diligently assembling the stories and first-hand accounts of survivors. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu explained about the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in the wake of South Africa’s apartheid, letting people have their stories seen and heard is an act that itself is empowering and is the foundation for justice. I still believe that seeing is believing. The value of video footage lies not just in its existence, but in the inability to deny what is captured for posterity. Timely, accurate and impartial information is the most powerful force we have to protect the fundamental rights of all people. Now more than ever, there are more bystanders willing to step forward and speak truth to power. And, as ever, they need your help to do it. ## Transcript [ CROSSTALK ] This guy right here is forcibly trying to lock somebody up for breaking up a fight. Everybody is standing here. And i didn't do nothing. A fight actually broke out and everyone jumped up and separated the fight. Told them to go across the street and the officer's arrived on the scene. Basically let the two guy's that were fighting walk off. And kept all the attention on Eric. Please just leave me alone. I told you for the last time, please leave me alone . >> ??? I didn't sell anything. I did nothing, I was sitting here the whole time minding my business. Who did I sell cigarettes to? To who? Not that red shirt, you know the guy in the red shirt? How can you say you, you see me sell a cigarette and all I did was break up a fight. What it doesn't matter just because you said I did it, I did it? Well I did it. Saw you pull it our of your bag. My bag, I don't got no bag! From there two seconds later, the sirens were heard. Well, when he grabbed him by his neck, he pulled back to try to bring him to the ground, [ INAUDIBLE ] and within all that time the guy was still. Around his neck. Put your hands behind your head. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. Then he pushed his head into the floor twice, and then put his knee in his face while Eric was telling him he couldn't breathe. And I seen his eyes roll back and he was foaming from the mouth. And I knew he was gone from there. [ yelling ]. [ crosstalk ]. I kept telling them, try to push the issue like put an oxygen mask on him. And all they did was leave the cuffs on him and search him. I felt that they treated him wrong even after the fact that they had him contained. You watched everything, you know everything. That [ beep ] jumped out at him for breaking up a fight. He was like the neighborhood, like the neighborhood dad. Everybody loved him. The old people, the young people. They not supposed to put people in chokeholds. [ INAUDIBLE ] [ NOISE ] Stop resisting. [ INAUDIBLE ] Shut the up you hear me. [ INAUDIBLE ] You see that, they're like- Stop. Shut up. I've been harassed by cops since this happened. Anything like just don't interact physically. Just pull out a camera and that's all people need. Not only New Yorkers getting abused by police. It's everywhere. I just hope it gives people the courage to not be scared of these people cuz it's a lot of he said she said. 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